Blood of the Gorgon

[kensanata]

I like that I get two pdfs for the price of one, but I need to know a little more about it beyond that there's alchemy and some steam punk elements.

Two things: First, you won't get two PDFs for the price of one. In fact, the PDFs for old projects will be more expensive! That's because you're basically doing a pre-order for the current project if you join. The price for older projects you didn't help make possible by pre-ordering will be more expensive.

Second, I think the entire thing results in quite expensive adventures. So you need to look beyond the adventures if you want to justify the price. In this particular case, you get to follow some discussions on the forums related to the current project. There will be surveys where you can vote on your favorite monster type or whatever the authors are undecided about. There will be design essays by the authors. This extra material must be worth a few dollars to you if you consider joining.

(For the record I joined for Empire of the Ghouls, and bought Castle Shadowcrag, but haven't signed up for Arabian Nights or Blood of the Gorgon.)

 

[roguerouge]

Wolfgang Baur rocks. He has written some really excellent adventures, some of the best in the history of D&D.

Which ones?

 

[roguerouge]

...you're basically doing a pre-order for the current project if you join. ...

(For the record I joined for Empire of the Ghouls, and bought Castle Shadowcrag, but haven't signed up for Arabian Nights or Blood of the Gorgon.)

So you chipped in 25 bucks twice? Is that how this works?

It's an interesting idea and use of the medium, but I'm going to want to know a bit more about what the final products have been like before I sign on for Blood of the Gorgon.

 

[Wolfspider]

Which ones?

These are some of my personal favorite books and adventures:

"Savage Tide: Enemies of My Enemy" in Dungeon #149
"A Rose for Talakara" in Dungeon #25
Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, April 2007
Beyond Countless Doorways, 2004, Malhavoc Press
In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil, 1995, TSR
"Kingdom of the Ghouls" in Dungeon #70
Crucible of Chaos by Paizo

You can find a complete list (although not updated recently) here:

http://wolfgangbaur.com/about/bookshelf.aspx

 

[Glyfair]

Okay, but why would I want to buy it? With books, I can read the book to see if it fits the campaign. With pdfs, I can read reviews and see if it fits the campaign. Right now, I can do neither of these things. I have to take it on faith and buy these pdfs sight unseen. I like that I get two pdfs for the price of one, but I need to know a little more about it beyond that there's alchemy and some steam punk elements.

Then these aren't what you are looking for. They are an experiment (yes, even still they are being tweaked from project to project).

Here is Wolfgang's brief explanation on the concept of these projects.

I'm returning to an old, old model for writers with the next adventure I write: patronage. In the medieval age and in the Renaissance, patrons were the ones who commissioned artists and writers. There was no such thing as a "publisher". People who wanted books paid someone directly to write them.

The OpenDesign projects are about applying that strategy to RPG adventures. They use a publishing approach that avoids the pitfalls of corporate game development, and they provide a way to share design knowledge with interested gamers.

There are primarily 3 reasons to choose these over more traditional methods.

1) To have input into the design process. Essentially you are paying a professional game designer to write an adventure for you. The catch is that you are part of a group and it's not just for you (Wolfgang has hinted he'd be willing to do a private commission, but the price would be measured in thousands of dollars - you are paying him for months of work).

2) If you want to see professional game design from the inside. Wolfgang, and similarly Nic, gives peeks at their design process, with higher level patrons getting more inside information (I've always been in at the lowest level). If this is all you are interested in, I'll point you to the standalone KOBOLD Guide to Game Design

3) If you want a very limited project. Each of these projects has a very limited circulation amount. It has become watered down since the first project (which only the original patrons have), but even now there is a very limited number of copies of each circulated.

Castle Shadowcrag (which you can read a review of here had the highest circulation, I suspect. Wolfgang not only offered to sell copies of the adventure to patrons of Empire of the Ghouls, he also offered to sell it to early subscribers to Kobold Quarterly.

In fact, the first project, Steam & Brass, had exclusivity as a selling point. As Wolfgang got towards the end of the project you could tell he was having second thoughts about this. I suppose that a creator naturally wants to share his works with as many people as possible. He softened that stance to later projects and while he mentions limited circulation he seems to have an "I'm making no promises" stance. He has even mentioned nasty, threatening emails from some who are offended that they can't get a copy of Steam & Brass.

So you chipped in 25 bucks twice? Is that how this works?

The minimum level was lower for the first couple of projects (I believe $5 for Steam & Brass and $10 for Castle Shadowcrag). This got you a PDF copy of the adventure, design essays and some discussion of the adventure. You also got some input. For the first couple of projects you got to vote on the project (there were typically several adventures to choose from).

For everything but the first project you had the option to order a print copy from LuLu, at cost. It was over & above your patron fee, but it was a nice option. The other patrons have started pricing me out of that option, I have to admit. They keep insisting on slicker production values with drive up the price. The first project was a mere $9 +S/H, while the last was $22 + S/H (about $50 for a softcover & PDF of a selection of mini-adventures).

 

[Monkey King]

Glyfair, thanks for the rundown. Roguerogue, I'm pretty sure these projects aren't for you. They are meant as very small-scale experiments in design and a way to show how adventures are written, with explanations of many of the decisions along the way from outline to text to playtest.

In other words, there's no way to know exactly what the project will be like when you support it. Instead, you get to ask questions, review elements of it, make suggestions. If you don't enjoy the design process and would rather thumb through a table of contents before making a purchase decision (and really, for many people that's the ideal), this is not for you.

That said, some gamers find it's a lot of fun to brainstorm and to make an adventure better and better with feedback before publication. And I confess that Open Design forces me to elevate my design work in interesting ways, trying things that probably would never fly in a more traditional design process.

Really, if you want is an adventure off the shelf, this is a terrible solution. You'd have to spend months waiting and discussing and testing while it is being written, tested, and edited. The joy is in the travel, and the patrons are buying a service, not a book.

One other point worth noting: Castle Shadowcrag was nominated for an ENnie last year.

 

[roguerouge]

Glyfair, thanks for the rundown. Roguerogue, I'm pretty sure these projects aren't for you. They are meant as very small-scale experiments in design and a way to show how adventures are written, with explanations of many of the decisions along the way from outline to text to playtest.

In other words, there's no way to know exactly what the project will be like when you support it. Instead, you get to ask questions, review elements of it, make suggestions. If you don't enjoy the design process and would rather thumb through a table of contents before making a purchase decision (and really, for many people that's the ideal), this is not for you.

Hrm. Perhaps, although as an academic who's done a conference paper on role playing games and modern myths, I might be able to write off the expense of joining. Also, given that I post here relatively frequently, I clearly like to write about these issues, so it looks enjoyable as a past-time. Yet I vastly prefer to use published adventures in my one PC campaign rather than to design my own, due to burnout fears.

How long has Blood of the Gorgon been brainstorming for? It might be more fun for me to join earlier in the process of constructing one of these adventures than later.

 

[Monkey King]

How long has Blood of the Gorgon been brainstorming for? It might be more fun for me to join earlier in the process of constructing one of these adventures than later.

The project really started in February, though there was a gap due to travel. I agree that it seems like the most fun to join early on, when the foundations are being laid.

However, playtest is about to start in a week or two, and that's the other big period of patron feedback.

The next one kicks off in late May.